
On Contemporary Technical Education 

ADDRESS OF 

John R. Freeman 

On behalf of the Engineering Societies at the 
INAUGURATION OF 

President CHARLES S. HOWE 

Case School of Applied Science 


Cleveland, Ohio, May ii, 1904 







































[Reprinted from the Journal of the Association of Engineering Societies.] 


ON CONTEMPORARY TECHNICAL EDUCATION. 

ADDRESS OF JOHN R. FREEMAN* 

On Behalf of the Engineering Societies at the 

INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT CHARLES S. HOWE. 

CASE SCHOOL OF APPLIED SCIENCE, 
Cleveland, Ohio, May 11, 1904. 

Mr. President: 

As delegate on behalf of our Engineering Societies, I must 
explain that these also are Schools of Applied Science. They are 
the more attractive to students since they hold no examinations; all 
studies are elective and voluntary; one recites only when he feels 
like it; and the social element, is pre-eminent. 

Into this university: of • t«he Engineering Societies, we hope to 
receive all of your graduates and to retain them as fellow-students 
and warm friends to the end of their lives. 

APPRECIATION OF THE TECHNICAL SCHOOL. 

In speaking on behalf of the engineering profession, my first 
words must acknowledge our great debt to the technical school and 
that this debt is increasing from year to year. Our members are 
coming to be recruited in an ever-increasing proportion from the 
technical graduates ( 1 ).f 

From the researches conducted in your laboratories, we obtain 
much of our most valuable engineering data. 

Our best books of reference for the practicing engineer are 
nearly all prepared by the professors in these technical schools ( 2 ). 

The strongest foundation for a country’s future industrial and 
commercial welfare is to be found in Schools of Applied Science, 
well equipped, guided by men of broad mental horizon. This is 
scantily appreciated as yet by the mass of strenuous Americans, but 

* Vice-President American Society of Mechanical Engineers; Member 
Board of Managers, Association of Engineering Societies. 

In compliance with the invitation received, and, at the request of the 
Chairman, Mr. Freeman represented the Board at the inauguration of Presi¬ 
dent Howe. 

f Footnotes. See end of paper. 






2 


it has long been clearly seen by the Germans, and is beginning to be 
seen by the English ( 3 ). 

The cost of duplicating the land, buildings, equipment and en¬ 
dowment of the largest and most complete technical school in the 
United States, training more than 1500 young men, is little more 
than half the cost of one of the latest battleships, and the running 
expenses of the largest technical school per year are about the same 
as for keeping a battleship in commission ( 4 ). The Technical School 
has a use no less important than the battleship in the “first line of 
national defense.” The time has already come when the common¬ 
wealth and the nation should contribute more liberally to the burden 
of its support and help it to ever broader usefulness. With the in¬ 
creasing numbers of students and with the rapidly increasing cost 
of laboratory facilities needed for the best training, the need of 
funds is greater than private munificence can be relied upon to 
meet. The demonstration of their great value to the prosperity of 
the state is already complete ( 5 ). 

In the re-awakening of the old spirit of commercial adventure 
in foreign lands, we must to-day base our hope of success on supe¬ 
rior excellence and economy of manufacture and in the calling of 
our engineers to foreign lands. 

The growth of our cities is laying a burden of new and larger 
problems on our departments of public works, a burden which only 
those trained in the Schools of Applied Science can carry wisely 
and well. 

The business man, when he comes to see these matters clearly, 
will urge again and again a generous support to Schools of Applied 
Science by city, state and nation when private munificence falls 
short. 

These schools need, as managers, the strongest men that can 
be found, the men of broadest horizon, the men that can arouse the 
noble ambitions of young men toward advancing the state of an 
art and that can impart the spirit of joy in work. 

APPRECIATION OF THE TECHNICAL GRADUATE. 

For twenty-five years I have been observing the increasing re¬ 
spect paid by our industrial leaders to the training gained in the tech¬ 
nical school. The technical graduate himself has come to better 
understand his own limitations, and his need of a course outside, 
under instruction from the foreman and the mechanic. The man 
of business is coming to understand that there are “first,” “seconds” 
the “thirds” produced, that some excel in judgment and some in 
skill, and that it is not the mere fact of being a technical graduate 


3 


that brings success, but that, given inborn executive ability, the 
training of college or technical school gives to its graduate a tre¬ 
mendous advantage over the man of equal native force who has not 
this training. 

Twenty-eight years ago the finding of openings by my own 
fellow graduates was difficult and slow,—not a third of our men 
found openings of fair promise within the first six months; the 
average “captain of industry” did not then know just what a techni¬ 
cal graduate was, or what he was good for. 

We then listened to prophesies that the annual output of en¬ 
gineering graduates would soon overstock the market. To-day, 
notwithstanding that, during the past quarter of a century, technical 
schools have multiplied on every side and that classes in many of the 
older ones have increased fourfold, the output is quickly absorbed. 
The department head in one of our largest technical schools has 
told me repeatedly that in each recent year he has had applications 
from managers of important works for double the number of his 
graduates, and it is said that certain large and progressive concerns 
send an agent around the schools in January to select from the 
brightest of those who are to graduate in June. 

The mere register of the occupation of the graduates from any 
leading School of Applied Science is a most eloquent commentary 
on the commanding influence of these schools. 

Twenty-five years ago, among managers of works, I heard much 
about the good practical man and his superiority to the theoretical 
college graduate; to-day it is coming to be generally recognized that 
the good practical man is the one who has graduated from a techni¬ 
cal school and who has then been seasoned by a few years of experi¬ 
ence in bumping against corners of construction, and the technical 
graduate of proved business ability is in special demand. 

The Technical School, the School of Mechanic Arts, and the 
Mechanics Correspondence School, each has its special and distinct 
value in our industrial life. We should make the technical school 
attractive to the brightest minds, and should look to it for our in¬ 
dustrial and commercial leaders and for the best custodians of the 
public health, of our water supplies and other public works. 

In order to get the most out of the existing technical schools, 
let us keep in mind the limitations within which they can do their 
most efficient work, and the fact that not every kind of work will 
be best done by a technical graduate. The students found without 
promise of final success should in all kindness be allowed to depart 
and not hold back the best. 


4 


Doubtless a man may give lines and grades as well, may drive 
an engine or detail steel work better, if his four years of early man¬ 
hood have been spent gaining this dexterity and skill outside the • 
technical school. The late Col. T. J. Borden, a sympathetic 
thoughtful man of 40 years’ experience as manager of large in¬ 
dustrial works, and himself a technical graduate, told me that for 
many years he had been observing that a faithful uneducated 
laborer would in general keep a more correct tally sheet of the un¬ 
loading of a cargo than the bright high-school graduate whose 
thoughts were flying off to other things; that a large factory 
engine would be run with better attention and fewer breakdowns 
by a graduated stoker or oiler than by an expert machinist, who was 
liable to be scheming out improvements and to have his mind busy 
with something other than the mere operation of this machine; 
that often the best routine work was done by a man who was not 
capable of anything very much better. 

The young man who is to follow a narrow routine through life 
will not have much added to his efficiency, as a machine, by the long 
elaborate course of the technical school. For those constitutionally 
deficient in ambition, or for those unfortunates who can never com¬ 
prehend the art of getting on in the world, these four extra years 
are ill spent at school, but there are plenty of young men for whom 
this training of the technical school is the best possible training, 
and there is plenty of opportunity for a larger number of these 
men than all of our present schools can graduate. 

Men cannot be shaped on the interchangeable system of the 
American Machine Shop, each will be a “special,” and, as already 
remarked, there will be produced “firsts,” “seconds,” and “thirds,” 
but fortunately the demand for all types and grades exceeds the 
possible supply for years to come. 

Among the graduates, some will possess that rare faculty for 
which “initiative” is the phrase of the day, and among these there 
will be some who will possess that quality of balance and judgment, 
and attain such knowledge of men, that they will become great lead¬ 
ers, the captains, will establish their own industrial works or be 
called to the $10,000 positions which are always so hard to fill right. 
Others, without this business insight, but perhaps more learned and 
more skilful in engineering, will design machines and bridges, 
supervise factories, become the lieutenants and fill the $4000 and 
the $2000 positions, and a still larger number will do noble work as 
the sergeants, corporals and privates and be made better men by 
the broadening of their minds in their college course. 


5 


The training of no school can make the square peg fit easily in 
the round hole, and, out of a hundred boys, but few are born with 
the ear of a musician or the eye of an artist, or with the observing, 
inquiring, ingenious, imaginative mind, which schools can stimulate 
but cannot create, and without which conspicuous success in con¬ 
structive engineering is impossible. But for the young man so 
fitted by nature, a technical school of broad scope and high aim is a 
royal road. 

A ROYAL ROAD. 

The old statement that “There is no royal road to learning’' is 
untrue. The man of affairs has come to understand that the 
technical school is a royal road to learning, a shorter road, an easier 
road, through a more beautiful landscape, and in equal time attain¬ 
ing a broader outlook. 

A man with the earnestness and persistence of John Brashier, 
the strong purpose of John C. Hoadley, the rugged common sense of 
Edwin Reynolds, the strong, kindly heart and quick intelligence of 
John Fritz, or the genius of Edison, may reach an equal height by 
a longer and more arduous road, and, like the athlete, increase his 
strength and harden his endurance in the greater effort; but the 
royal road of the technical school, in its four years, may, from its 
small group of a hundred, gathered part by chance and part by 
process of natural selection from more than ten thousand school 
boys, bring perhaps ten or twenty to the point that otherwise not 
more than one or two or three could hope to reach in twice these 
four years. 

The technical school is not exclusively for the brilliant man. 
Much of the world’s best work is done by the man of slow-moving 
intellect, to whom the good Lord has given the greater treasure of 
persistence, of steadfastness, with enough of imagination or instinct 
to feel what is concealed within the cloud on yonder difficult and 
distant hill. 

There is danger in relying upon lectures and reading for teach¬ 
ing, and upon written examinations for measuring up a student and 
his fitness to continue on his four years’ course. One of the greatest 
advantages of the technical school is found in its Laboratory 
method, for the reason that the personal, individual contact with the 
student daily in the laboratory gives an opportunity for helping the 
one who is slow to develop himself. 

I have had perhaps twenty graduates tell me in familiar talk 
that the most helpful man to them of all the “Technology” pro¬ 
fessors was the lamented Holman. Why? First, because he was 
intellectually great and a noble man, and second, because he took 


6 


pains to get acquainted with them and their individual needs, in the 
laboratory. The ablest professors should be brought into earliest 
possible contact with the freshmen in the laboratory. 

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR THE TECHNICAL GRADUATE. 

A few moments ago we were considering the broader apprecia¬ 
tion, by men of affairs, for the work of the technical school; let us 
for a moment review the causes of its great opportunity. 

That the manufacture of power was the mainspring of the on¬ 
ward movement of the nineteenth century was made plain, perhaps 
more ludicidly than ever before, by that great engineer, whose re¬ 
cent loss we mourn, George H. Morison, in his Phi Beta Kappa 
address at Harvard in 1895. 

In the skilful application of manufactured power lies the great 
opportunity of the engineer. 

The distribution and use of manufactured power are increasing 
by leaps and bounds in a way that few of us can see in perspective. 

It moves a thousand cotton spindles guided by a single hand, 
with the power of more than a thousand horses, ( 6 ) it draws your 
“20th Century Expresslarge cotton factories in Montreal are 
driven by a waterfall nearly a hundred miles away; the power of Ni¬ 
agara rends the strongest chemical affinities. The chariot, as made in 
Cleveland, is horseless, but it is propelled by the power of 24 horses, 
all generated in a little space and derived from a harnessed explo¬ 
sion. In another part of your city, the most delicate and accurate 
engraving that the skill of the world has known, an astronomer's 
circle with markings correct within less than a second of arc, may 
go on in solitude as a result of a laborer shovelling coal under a 
steam boiler. To-day there is far more steam power used in Lowell 
than water power, and in your city of Cleveland the power manu¬ 
factured from coal far exceeds that of the greatest single develop¬ 
ment of water power in the world ( 7 ), Niagara not excepted. The 
General Electric Co. had on its books, on Jan. 31, 1904, undelivered 
orders for steam turbines of an aggregate power of 350,000 horse 
power, an amount three times as great as the present total genera¬ 
tion of power from Niagara and nearly half as great as the total 
water and steam power combined, in the six New England States, 
found by the census of 1880. 

With the aid of unlimited power, work is performed in a 
larger way and with greater rush, and with this comes the greater 
need of executive ability, of captains and corporals of systematic, 
observing habit, equipped with the tools and training of the techni¬ 
cal school. 


7 


This is a transition period, and never was there such oppor¬ 
tunity for the trained engineer. Mechanical production must sup¬ 
ply the natural increase due to the growth in population, and replace 
machines worn out by service, and even new machines by some¬ 
thing newer. Here in Cleveland your horse cars were not worn 
out when the cable car replaced them, your cable railways were not 
worn out when the electric car came in. Not only the equipment, 
but the shop that makes it, must largely go into scrap. 

Two or three years ago one of the leading engine builders of 
the world began on new shops in a city on the Great Lakes, the larg¬ 
est of their kind, designed for building engines of the most massive 
type. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were expended on these 
shops and their heavy machine tools, but, before these shops were 
occupied, customers were inquiring, not for engines but for steam 
turbines. 

The leading pump builder of America began two years ago on 
new shops near New York, these also to be the largest in the world; 
the plans had been matured by years of study, for building pumping 
engines of the ordinary reciprocating type. Before these shops 
are ready for occupancy, the old and simple and inefficient type of 
centrifugal pump is suddenly so improved as to threaten a revolu¬ 
tion which may profoundly change the type of shop equipment de¬ 
manded. 

A maker of valves and pipe fittings, a concern which had kept 
steadily up-to-date for more than a quarter of a century, started, 
about two years ago, to supply its expanding trade by a factory on 
the shores of Long Island Sound, designed to employ at first 2000 
and later 4000 men. The plans were matured with rare care and 
judgment. First, their man of greatest skill in shop methods plans 
for his various machines and lays out his floor space. Next, the 
skilled mill engineer makes plans to house that floor space in. Next, 
an architect, of national reputation for his inborn sense of beautiful 
form and graceful line, models the outlines of exterior wall and 
windows and roof. Machine tools of latest design had been pur¬ 
chased, apparently everything had been provided for, when, just 
as the roofs are on, the successful demonstration of a new kind of 
tool steel, which permits of far deeper and more rapid cuts, calls a 
halt and requires a radical change. 

All this is recent and the end is not in sight. Seventy-five 
. years ago, when Cleveland was a frontier village, within the mem¬ 
ory of a few men now living, the dry dock in the Boston Navy Yard 
was the most monumental piece of engineering construction and 
the greatest single work of internal improvement yet completed 


8 


within the United States, and the total of manufactured power in 
the United States did not equal the output of one of the large power 
stations of to-day. 

It is only forty years since the first distinctive general School 
of Applied Sciences, or Institute of Technology, in this country, 
began, sifter years of patient explanation and pleading by that 
lovable, eloquent, prophetic, noble man of science, William Barton 
Rogers, and how profoundly it has influenced the whole course of 
higher education. 

Not long ago I had a letter from a fine old gentleman of Boston 
who, educated in France, in his day and generation had been the 
best educated engineer in America and who began his practice on 
the earliest steam railroad, under the great Stephenson; one whose 
pleasure it had been through a life of uncommon length to follow 
engineering developments in varied lines. This man, who had seen 
the railroad born, the use of electricity and a thousand other mar¬ 
velous results of scientific study, wrote of the greater opportunity 
of the young engineer of to-day! 

Although the lines of work formerly recognized as engineer¬ 
ing may be crowded, there are, on every side, unworked fields in 
which the trained engineer, possessing business ability, be he 
builder, sanitarian, chemist, machinist, or electrician, can introduce 
system, discover causes, lessen cost and improve the product and 
find for himself a competency and joy in work. 

A PLEA FOR BREADTH OF CULTURE IN THE SCHOOL. 

The other speakers to-day are presidents of colleges, educators 
of wide experience and national reputation, and it savors of rash¬ 
ness for me, in their presence, to venture opinions upon the aims 
and methods of a technical school, but during my twenty-five years 
of taking on one or more technical graduates in almost every year, 
and trying, through them, to keep in touch with the schools, I have 
so often found what has seemed to me a misapprehension among 
students, friends and patrons of technical schools, that, to an audi¬ 
ence of patrons, teachers and students, a few words, from the stand¬ 
point of a business man and practicing engineer, may have some 
interest. 

Why do we not find the greatest prizes of the industrial works 
and of civic administration going more often to the technical grad¬ 
uate ? Why does the commercial department pay better salaries than 4 
the engineering department? We have all seen plenty of examples to 
prove that technical training can be of itself an aid rather than a bar 
to commercial success. 


9 


Have our men got too narrow a training in the technical 
school ? 

Within the past week I have chanced to hear two heads of great 
concerns, each employing many scientific men, say in substance that 
the old academic education fits better for the position where one 
deals with men,or for the $10,000 position, while the technical school 
fits better for the position that deals with materials, or for the $4000 
position, and I note that sons of my old classmates are being sent 
first to Harvard or Yale or Dartmouth for four years and then to 
“Technology” for a two years course in science. 

Six years time, from 18 to 24, is more than the average young 
man can afford to spend at school. It brings him into the works 
too late. When we more fully appreciate that education, rather 
than information, is the true aim of the technical school, then a 
broad education and sufficient information can both be given in a 
four years’ course. 

Can we not give a better education to the great majority of 
our students and plant in them thirst for information, by doing 
fewer things more profoundly and putting more emphasis on the 
personal element? 

Is not one great captain of science or industry, like Pasteur, 
Kelvin, Ericsson, Bessemer, Westinghouse, Brush, Hiram Mills or 
Alex. Brown and a hundred others, worth more to his country and 
his neighborhood than a roomful of the very necessary and useful 
sergeants and corporals of science and industry ? 

Cannot our school do the most good and best serve all, and best 
stimulate the ambition of all, by trying to fit men for the position of 
captain; and, if the man, skilled in the application of science, has 
also executive skill and such knowledge of men that he can negoti¬ 
ate, convince and arouse men, will not he have a wider opportunity 
to do good and to advance the state of the art and the public wel¬ 
fare ; and shall we not, by addressing our teaching to the highest 
grade, thus produce more of the $10,000 men and at the same time 
better $4000 men? 

In separating students into many courses, is there not danger 
of splitting things too fine ? Have the schools not already gone too 
far in specializing for the undergraduate? 

It is a matter of slight importance to the builder of machines 
or of water works whether he takes the course in mechanical en¬ 
gineering, civil engineering, or general physics, if he is fortunate in 
his teacher. 

The chief function of the Technical School is not the filling 
of a man’s memory with formulas and with knowledge of how every- 


IO 


thing is made, but rather is the training in methods of thoughtful 
research, of teaching how to put the question and where and how 
to find the answer, of how to set traps for our own unconscious 
errors, how to save time by understanding just what degree of pre¬ 
cision is necessary to the case in hand, how to measure with cer¬ 
tainty the limits of the ever-present error, and above all to develop 
and strengthen a warm, enthusiastic, undeviating love for the 
truth. 

In my own college days, I did not have it made plain, and I failed 
to grasp the fact, that perhaps the greatest opportunity of college 
life is that of coming to better know one’s fellow-men, and it is in 
failure to appreciate this, more than in any other one feature, that 
the professional school has failed in comparison with the older 
colleges. In the protest against the old education, exemplified in 
the early development of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 
and other similar schools, the pendulum swung beyond the center, 
and the value of the social idea was for a time not appreciated. 
To many of us there was lost the inspiration and broadening, the 
deeper understanding of humanity that may come from entering 
into the daily life of the ancient civilizations enough to understand 
that human nature is much the same through three thousand years. 
We missed that focussing and sharpening of the wits which comes 
from taking time for the discussion of current events with our 
fellows. 

We had a professor who wisely read to his class those verses 
on The Deacon’s Masterpiece, “that was built in such a logical way,” 
as typifying the ideal machine. McAndrews’ Hymn may teach a 
deeper lesson. The man should be led to find inspiration in his 
machinery, while in the technical school. 

A few weeks ago, in Chicago, I sat beside a classmate, a former 
“grind,” now a successful man of business, at a gathering of the 
graduates of one of our largest technical schools. Said he, “We 
were brought up wrong in being taught to spend so much time on 
our studies; we practiced a false economy in being too thrifty in 
our earlier years.” We were too late in learning that opportunity, 
sustaining power and a stimulus toward success, came more from a 
wise good-fellowship than from high scholarship, and that the art 
of being what in your terse Western phrase is called “a good mixer” 
was an art well worth time, money and paternal advice to cultivate. 
It is by giving the technical graduate a wise start in this direction 
that he will ultimately come more often into the larger opportunity 
and the higher salary of the commercial end. 


II 


This social feature is, in the final analysis, the chief value of 
the engineering societies. Although papers are presented in which 
one engineer so presents his experience that a hundred others may 
find each his own course more clear in attacking a similar problem, 
although one may hear presented in an evening hour the results 
of experiments and research that have cost a year of toil, all so 
summed up in a few lines of formulas or constants, that a repeti¬ 
tion of this labor and expense is saved to all who follow, and 
although the master mind may publish in the transactions a study 
upon difficult and disputed points that will lighten labor or save 
mistakes to many of his fellows; yet, after all, the pre-eminent use¬ 
fulness of the Society of Engineers is in the bringing of men into 
personal relation, inspiring the young man by personal contact 
with the man who has done things, giving the older men a chance 
to size up the growing young men; and, among equals, it removes 
the bitterness to personally know our successful competitor and to 
know that he is a good, honest man. 

If it be asked what suggestions can be offered to his friend, 
the teacher, by a practicing engineer, who has for twenty-five years 
enjoyed taking “green graduates” and trying to help them on their 
post-graduate course, I venture the following: 

Dwell on the principles of research, fill the student mind with a 
comprehension that the school is not so much for filling his memory 
with information as for teaching the scientific method. 

Give more attention to the principles of writing reports in 
clear, exact and vigorous English, to measuring the exact meaning 
into every sentence. Teach what may be called “commercial rheto¬ 
ric,” bringing the result quickly into the view of the busy man 
and seeking to so arouse his interest in the opening paragraphs that 
he will continue reading instead of laying it aside for the leisure 
hours that may never come. 

Emphasize the need, in the practical world, of “getting there” 
on time. 

Recognize that a judicious “cramming for examination” is 
legitimate, and that how to do it with the least internal friction is 
a most worthy subject of instruction. In closing business contracts 
and in expert work, it* is a much practiced and most useful art. 

Direct attention to the conditions necessary for obtaining a 
maximum output from the human machine. How seldom a man 
gives, to his own body, the same care he would give to that of a 
$1000 horse! Long hours under stress in emergency are easy if 
the man knows how to avoid fatigue through variety, and has the 
will power to practice what he knows. 


LofC. 


12 


Probably there is no better way to save time and cultivate 
judgment than by practice in quick estimates between limits. What 
does that stone weigh? Not more than 6 tons, not less than 4. 
What will that casting cost? Not less than $50, not more than 
$100. If the owner asks the cost of repairing the tangled smash-up 
of ten minutes ago, the young engineer can give him almost in¬ 
stantly an estimate that may serve his purpose, and be correct, if 
he states it between limits, as, “not more than $10,000, and not 
less than $1000.” Twenty-four hours later, he may be able to state 
it as not more than $5000, and not less than $4000. 

Urge upon your colleagues the fact that they owe it, to their 
fellow-citizens and to the loyal intelligent public that supports the 
school, to promptly and continually translate the story of the latest 
discovery of abstruse science down to the understanding of the well- 
educated non-technical man. 

Stimulate the interest of the students by continually bringing 
before them the results of the latest research and of what is being 
found out in other departments of the school. 

Recognize the fact that these four years’ time, with their at¬ 
tendant expense, are too valuable to be devoted to the attainment of 
mere manual dexterity. This can be more cheaply learned in the 
field or workshop than in the school. Do not shrink from turning 
out graduates who will be strong on theory, while perhaps weak 
on practice. They can get their practice outside after graduation, 
and perhaps under the quickening influence of some shortlived ridi¬ 
cule by the routine workman. The sound foundation of mathemat¬ 
ics, the facility in handling and transforming difficult equations, 
the mental grasp of difficult considerations, so as to state them in 
the language of mathematics and quantity, must be acquired in 
the Technical School or the chances are they will never be acquired. 

Finally, to the many students here, I can bring back no better 
word, from out the years since I left similar pleasant places, than 
to remind you how largely the success of a school depends on 
atmosphere and that every man has a share in forming public 
opinion; and to urge you to fill the atmosphere of the student of en¬ 
gineering with the fraternal spirit and with ideality,—ideality, with 
the love of thoroughness and with reverence for character. 


13 


NOTES. 

(1) Out of the latest 1000 condidates for admission to the American 
Society of Civil Engineers in the three grades, member, associate member and 
junior, about 75 per cent, have graduated from a technical school; in the 
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, this proportion is 60 per cent.; 
in the Electrical Engineers, 44 per cent. In each society the proportion is 
largest among the junior members. 

(2) Out of a catalogue of 55 technical books brought out by a leading 
American publisher of engineering books during the past year, 75 per cent, 
of the whole were by professors, mainly in Technical schools. 

(3) See Presidential address of Sir Norman Lockyer, President of the 
British Association for the Advancement of Science, in September last, 
entitled “The Influence of Brain Power in History,” devoted to urging the 
British Nation to come to the support of its Technical Schools. 

(4) COST OF A BATTLESHIP. 

The approximate cost of the hull of a first-class battleship is_$3,250,000 


The engines, machinery and engineering stores cost about. 1,300,000 

For the largest ships the cost of armor is about. 1,750,000 

For the largest ships the cost of armament is about. 1,050,000 

The supplies and general equipment about. 100,000 

Total cost of a first-class battleship about.$7,450,000 

For a ship of the Vermont class of 16,000 tons displacement, with 
the latest armament and including designs and superintendence, 
the total cost may approximate. $8,000,000 


The cost of maintaining such a ship in commission will be nearly 50 per 
cent, more than for the three ships as stated below, which are of 12,000 tons. 
The report of the Secretary of the Navy shows that the cost of 
maintaining the three battleships, Alabama, Kearsarge and 
Wisconsin, in commission for the year ending June 30, 1902, 


averaged . $441,248 

Current repairs. 3°>9 I 4 

Total . $472,162 


The foregoing includes pay of officers, crew and marines, and cost 
of stores, including coal, but includes no allowance for depre¬ 
ciation. If depreciation be figured at the moderate rate of 5 
per cent, annually, having regard to wear, and to improve¬ 
ments rendering much obsolete, this adds per year nearly.... 400,000 

$872,162 

COST OF A TECHNICAL SCHOOL. 

Several of the leading schools of applied science are parts of great 
universities in which the accounts of different departments are so merged 
that it is difficult to separate the cost of plant and running expenses required 
for the courses in applied science. 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is perhaps the most conve¬ 
nient example for present purposes, because of being almost exclusively a 
technical school. Its present site is on land of exceptionally high value for 














business purposes, because of surrounding developments; therefore, I will 
not include the full sum for which this land could probably be sold. 


It is estimated that a suitable site could be procured for. $250,000 

The estimated cost of replacing present buildings at present prices 

is . 1,044000 

The total value of apparatus and furnishings, as estimated for 

insurance purposes, is . 386,000 


Approximate cost of duplicating plant. $1,680,000 

The endowment or stock, bonds and real estate producing direct 

income is about . 1,150,000 

Total . $2,830,000 

The number of students last year was 1528. 

The annual expenditure last year in round numbers was as fol¬ 
lows : 

Salaries . $320,000 

Fuel . 25,000 

Water, gas and electricity. 7,600 

Repairs . 16,000 

Printing lecture notes, catalogues, etc. 14,000 

Laboratory supplies and libraries . 50,000 

General supplies and maintenance. 30,000 

Miscellaneous . 13,000 

Total . $475,000 

This amounts to an actual expenditure of about. $311 

per student (including special students, some of whom take 
few studies and pay less than full fee). Reckoning the inter¬ 
est at 4 per cent, and depreciation on whole plant, buildings 
and furnishings, at 5 per cent, per annum, this adds about.. 91 


making the total yearly cost per student. $402 

of which he now pays a tuition of $250 and until very recently 
only $200. 


(5) The generous support given by Michigan, Wisconsin, and California 
to their great State Universities, which are coming to be in large proportion 
schools of applied science, may indicate a better appreciation of this service 
to the State than is yet found in the legislatures of our Eastern common¬ 
wealths, or than is yet disseminated through the mass of their intelligent 
citizens. 

In 1903, Michigan paid from the State Treasury for the support 


of the State University .$559,835.03 

The State raises by general taxation in the average year for the 

support of the State University . 394,625 

and in addition makes special appropriations or draws from 
accumulated funds. 

Wisconsin raised by direct taxation for the support of its State 

University . 289,000 

and when the regular annual appropriation is found insuffi¬ 
cient the Legislature makes special appropriation. The entire 
disbursements on account of the State University last year 
amounted to . 771,053 



























15 


The University of California has an income for current expenses 

for 1904-05 of. 659,808.96 

mostly raised by direct taxation on property, of which sum 
nearly is appropriated for departments in which engineer¬ 
ing students predominate. 

The Case School of Applied Science is not assisted from general 
taxation, but depends for support only on the income from its 
endowment and fees of students. 

(6) A locomotive engine of the type used in drawing the 20th Century 
over the New York Central portion of the route has, under test, shown a 
continuous development of upward of 1200 horse power, at speeds of from 
40 to 57 miles per hour. 

From a large type of locomotive, recently put in service on the New York 
Central and Hudson River Railroad, an indicated horse power of approxi¬ 
mately 2000 has been obtained. 

On the Lake Shore road, indicator cards, taken from fast passenger 
trains at one minute intervals for an entire trip where the speed over an 
entire division averaged about the same as for the 20th Century Express, 
namely, 54 miles an hour, showed an average of about 1000 horse power 
for the entire division. For distances of 5 to 10 miles, powers as high as 


1500 to 1600 horse power have been obtained. 

Horse 

(7) The total amount of water power now in use daily by Power. 

the works located at Niagara is not far from. 75,000 

In addition to this, there are now generated at Niagara, and trans¬ 
mitted to Buffalo and other points, not far from. 25,000 

The aggregate capacity of the generators installed up to date at 

Niagara is about. 130,000 

On the American side an additional capacity is being provided of 

perhaps . 50,000 

And on the Canadian site the contracts have been let for machines 

capable of generating about . 80,000 

In the city of Cleveland an approximate estimate, reasonably made 
up by Mr. Ambrose Swasey and Mr. Scovill, vice-president 

of the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Co., puts it at. 50,000 

for the total of the large electric power and electric railroad plants. 

At the 73 large factories in Cleveland, they estimate the power used 

as . 85,000 

In small factories, lumber yards, office buildings, etc., etc., probably 25,000 


Total present use of steam power in Cleveland. 160,000 
















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